


hilum

by mirokkuma



Category: Johnny's Entertainment, KAT-TUN (Band)
Genre: Asexual Character, Figuring Things Out, M/M, Masturbation, asexual in sexual situations, gray-a asexual, grinding here there and everywhere, repulsion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-25
Updated: 2014-03-25
Packaged: 2018-01-16 22:29:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1364059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mirokkuma/pseuds/mirokkuma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of moments, memories, thoughts, nights, problems, and not-problems as Kame works around his conflicting professional and unprofessional relationship with Jin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hilum

**Author's Note:**

> (Don't know what grey-a/asexual is? Please check [here](http://www.asexuality.org/wiki/index.php?title=Gray-A_/_Grey-A)!)
> 
> Its been a long time! I wasn't expecting to be back here again, and especially not with something like this. I think every Akame fan has a Gokusen era fic in them, it just took eight years for mine to come to me (；´Д`  
> Thanks to my for reading this through and advising me and generally suffering pain for me. I've had a few asexual Jin's but actually debated numerous times over how I couldn't see Kame that way, but then I've not had any new(old) muses in a long time and this fic just happened /wheezes Gokusen era stood out to me as a time when they were close but the time period meant awareness and resources on the subject were very limited. This is just one example of an asexual/sexual relationship - it's down to the individual if they are comfortable or not in sexual situations, and repulsion isn't a given. This Kame is gray-a. ok, ok, I'm done now ;;

  
情熱  
 _jou_ : emotion ; _netsu_ : fever  
passion; enthusiasm; zeal  


"He acts too hard," Jin laughs around a mouthful of rice, "Like, he researched acting so much now he puts all of it into everything even if it's just one line or something." 

Teppei shrugs with polite indifference, turning a large onigiri around and around with his small fingers. Kame is tense at his side and painted with bruises. He laughed at what Jin said because it's true, because self deprecation is a good quality. Teppei feels his leg jogging.

"People have different ways of achieving the same goal," he tells Jin. He finds the edge of the nori and pulls off a more manageable lump of rice. "He's just passionate about acting."

Jin looks bemused. "So am I," he swallows audibly, impatient to stuff more food in his mouth. "But when you're passionate about something you just do it! That's what passion is, right?"

Teppei says, "Probably" with a sleeve-covered hand over his full mouth. Jin muses on the subject for a few seconds longer before his attention is captured by a call for seconds if anyone wants the left overs.

"He's right," Kame says quietly while Jin is harassing the caterers. He smiles after him despite the sour feeling in his stomach.

If Jin is the fever of passion Kame is the emotion, but Kame is stilted and uncertainly measured while Jin burns ever stronger and fiercer. Kame's fingertips are black and raw.

"Everyone has their own way of doing things," Teppei says gently, nudging Kame's tray closer to him as he stands to leave, "No one needs a world full of Jin."

"Right." Kame hopes he laughed but his throat feels full and stretched. He sits alone behind his full tray until he's called back on set.

 

\---

"Ka~me~"

Kame presses a fingernail to the line he was reading and raises his head, copper hair blonde under lamp light. "I thought you fell asleep ages ago," he whispers across to the Jin-shaped lump of covers.

"Meh," Jin says as he emerges.

Kame shifts on his stomach to better face Jin and nods to the script on his pillow. "I don't have many lines in tomorrow's scenes, but I'm in the background a lot so I was.."

Location shoots mean hotels with a two step gap between the beds. Jin can cover it in one.

"I do," Jin says as he buries under Kame's covers. His toenails catch Kame's ankle and Kame scowls. "I have to say a bunch of stuff and run around and.. I think get punched in the face again."

"Good." Kame clears his throat to signal that Jin should stop being blithe and start being quiet again and looks back to the script. Words blur under orange light, the fine threaded visual map in the back of Kame's mind starting to slacken. It proves impossibly hard to return his focus and empathy to the words when Jin's infuriatingly appealing eyes are turned on him and his own are beginning to droop.

Kame inches his line of vision as far as Jin's shoulder on the pillow. Jin wiggles closer. "Why are you over here?"

"I can't sleep with your light on." Jin yawns hot against Kame's ear for emphasis. Kame tenses through a shiver but knows Jin felt it. Knows really Jin is saying _go the fuck to sleep, you don't need to do this, you're an overachieving asshole_. Jin fumbles on the finesse of soft, delicate words whispered in the dead of night, but he does know when not to shout. Jin has yet to find a circumstance in which he's unable to sleep. _I care about you too much to keep watching you do this._

There's not enough fight left in Kame at this time of day to protest as Jin dog-ears his page and closes the script with an impatient, 'there'. Kame's so tired and there's so much more he could have done. He starts to fall asleep face down, cradled by his two crossed arms, too frayed around the edges to remember that Jin is at his side with a script book and an aversion to his light being on and a silver ring on his little finger.

"You suck." Jin says somewhere above Kame, his weight - his knees and elbows - dipping and jogging the bed. The script slaps onto the nightstand, the orange glow behind Kame's eyelids clicks into darkness. For a split second there's peace. Then there's arms thicker than his own, hands bigger than his own, and they're digging in and blunt and painful on his ribs until the moment they're not.

In the dark Jin only manages to maneuver Kame enough onto his side that he's at least not at risk of suffocating in a pillow.

"This is the last time I'm doing this." Jin sighs despairingly, like he's done at least two other times in as many weeks because Jin gets lonely and likes to leech heat, knows a war starts in Kame's head when he verbalises that he cares. "You're fucking freezing."

"I hadn't noticed." Kame's not sure if that followed as a reason for why Jin was totally not going to do this again (again) or if it's the reason for why Jin is crowding him into the mattress. He has noticed now, that his toes may as well have dropped off and his back is icy under the thin sheets.

Jin makes a displeased sound. When Jin wants himself comfortable he makes a good job of it; Kame's drowsily aware of an ankle locking through his own, a knee pushed between his legs, arms now less uncomfortable and more steadying around his waist. Jin's heavy and broad and his chest weighs against Kame's back. Kame's so warm.

"See you in a few hours." Jin grumbles into the tight muscle between Kame's neck and shoulder.

"Sorry," Kame says quietly. "Sleep well."

Jin's response is a grunt already half way there.

Kame smiles. Or mentally notes a smile, at least. His awareness is fading fast, but he spends the last moments of it figuring out which of the indistinct nice-feeling parts of his body are actually Jin's.

Kame falls asleep barely a minute after Jin, warm, numb and comfortably half-hard against the soft fleece lining his sweatpants.

\---

Jin doesn't memorise his scripts. There's always a dog-eared copy in Hayato's school bag, rolled up and stuffed in pockets between scenes for a reminder. He throws himself into Hayato, ad-libs half of his scenes and adds directions through more of an intense chemical reaction to being on set than through any kind of genius. It's charming, it's fitting, it works.

Ryu is slower and more measured. That's what Kame tells Jin when he teases his devotion to each printed word. Kame reads fast, reads slower, visualises, empathises, re-reads, memorises, pesters the others as to how they plan to act their scene. Kame puts his everything into every second and Jin is his polar opposite, yet together they click, collide, become whole.

Jin has never wanted to be like Kame, but buried in Kame there's residual admiration. Failed and still succeeded, the popular nobody who risked what he had based on nothing but blind faith (blind faith in nothing but Kame being cute, _you're so cute, don't listen to them, I like you lots and lots and lots_ ). Headstrong enough to reach for Kame's hand, hold it tight and drag Kame into his limelight - wanted to share it, fought for celebrity and kissed the competition.

They've evened out with age, skill and developing features, yet sometimes Kame still feels so small at Jin's side. Maybe he could burst out of the restrictive direction his professionalism is taking if he and Jin weren't bound to the same path as a pair. Kame would have chosen to succeed had it been him with Jin's head start, but it wasn't. And he still listens to them, and Jin still likes him lots and lots and lots.

\---

"I can. Go. I mean, give me a few minutes, and. Shit, sorry, I wasn't expecting.."

"It's fine," Kame's frown is sleepy. Why wouldn't it be fine. Why are you going. "'m not coming over here just for you to leave."

It's just past 1:30am on a location shoot. Hotel beds with a two step gap between that Kame's sleepy shuffles cover in three. Cold rooms, cold sheets, warm Jin with flushed cheeks and a fast moving hand beneath the covers.

"But I'm.." Jin's voice is tight and high, furtive gaze to the bathroom door unwavering, his arm straight and frozen.

Kame's gummy eyes widen slightly at the intimation of Jin thinking he'd been subtle. Then they droop again, he shivers, and Jin wails quietly as Kame lifts the covers and nudges his bony self under.

"Stupid," Kame says affectionately, and then, "Ahh, so warm~" before Jin can protest him curling close. Kame is comfortable with his cheek smushed to the less shriek-inducing of Jin's clavicle when he notices the absence of a steady (or rapid, even) rise and fall to Jin's chest. He's still and tense. Kame grunts and gives his shoulder a gentle paw.

Jin lets out a noise as though Kame had stepped on his bare toes with the heel of a fine leather shoe and told him not to make a sound.

"Do you want to keep going?"

Jin starts breathing again. Kame yawns into the dip of his throat and snuggles closer, content that Jin won't asphyxiate and leave him to explain to his family and the media a corpse with a hand down its pants.

"I thought you might be upset," Jin says quietly, worming his free arm under Kame's head to cradle him to his side. "Or.." he continues, drags out the sound and then falls silent. Jin dislikes the word repulsed, but he has yet to find a softer description for the way Kame sometimes turns steely beneath his hands, warm intimacy ending on bathroom tiles as Kame splutters through angry, angry tears that he's sorry and wanted to, thought it'd be ok, trembles, retches, doesn't understand what's wrong with him because last time it was ok and why isn't it always ok. Why is not ok so severe.

Kame sleepily shakes his head. "I wouldn't have come over here. 'm good.

I wanted to be with you while you did it," Kame says against the soft skin below Jin's ear. He isn't tired enough to not enjoy the warmth, the rise and wane of excitement curling under his skin, or to miss the movement of Jin's leg against his - his toes curling.

Kame doesn't open up often, though he's tried a hundred times for Jin, but time and experience can't give him the words to explain exactly what he feels. Whatever it is they've clearly established that it's different, but Jin is fine with different. Fine with Kame being on and off, too emotionally sated to find a problem in some nights bucking against that tight stretch of muscle down Kame's inner thigh and other nights a pillow. Sometimes Kame wants him, _wants him_ , doesn't have to tell Jin twice that it doesn't mean anything if they respond differently. Sometimes Kame looks more broken than any resource has told him he is, and Jin will kiss him, chaste, or know not to shout.

"Sorry if last time made you unsure," Kame grits through a yawn, drops the hand from his mouth to feel his way over Jin's ribcage. "'m too mysterious for my own good, huh?" he says with humour, because sometimes he can bury his nose in Jin's wild, softly peroxide bed-head and feel as though there's nothing of him but sunshine.

The past year of their relationship has been a learning process - one Jin is enjoying immensely. Kame is a people pleaser but he can't find perfection for Jin, and that's an anomaly he's proud to be. For Jin the only time things aren't ok are when Kame thinks they aren't, lapses in faith.

There's nothing like that now. Just the hum of Jin's heartbeat, Kame's wandering fingers on his torso. Jin's flinching, Kame's fingertips seeking out the spots that send sparks through him, make him twitch up against the cool relief of the sheets. Kame could laugh at his little jolts, but instead kisses Jin's jaw and hopes he remembers this moment with every sense.

Jin preens at the attention. He glances down at the content curve of Kame's lips, drums is fingers on his hip. "Do you want to..?"

"Mm.." Kame's hand slips from Jin's piercing to his arm, following it down and hooking their fingers. "Not sure," he answers honestly, swinging their hands a little, careful not to ghost over anything raw with sensitivity. It's nice sometimes, really nice, to have the weight and heat and Jin's soft little yelps in his hand. Makes Kame feel full and content inside, aching and untouched on the outside. That's really, really nice, sometimes.

"I'm not teasing," Kame mumbles against Jin's shoulder, a hint pre-emptively defensive after giving Jin's fingers a squeeze and carefully slipping back out of tented sweatpants territory.

Jin yawns, sticks his own hand back down there and the yawn turns into a sound Kame would laugh at louder if it weren't so late at night. "I know, I offered," Jin's pitch wavers, one eye scrunching shut in a sort of wince as he tries to pick up where he left off five minutes previous.

Soon Kame yawns again too. In near darkness and with the cover of winter blankets there's more to hear and feel than see, and even that winds from shortbreathed excitement to a dim, content sort of expectancy - the other way around for Jin, who's making the sweetest breathless sounds at Kame's side, but then Kame is the inactive party. Kame is the warm comfortable voyeuristic party. The arm around Kame tightens sporadically, and Kame finds he likes that a lot.

"This is nice."

"Gross," Jin hoarsely thinks outloud in reply (more wincing) as he imagines how he would want someone he hopes to spend the foreseeable future with to see him and then compares to his current state.

Kame smiles, presses it to Jin's chest. Warm. Kame is always warm when he's with Jin. Jin's damp shirt, damp skin and hair and breath and the scent in the air.. Kame sighs through the fabric, makes Jin grumble in gruff surprise, tries so so hard to put all of this to memory. "I don't mind at all," he says, maybe, or maybe just thinks it as he sighs again with a taste of salt on his lips. Vaguely, sleepily rubbing and pinching through cotton.

Kame starts to drift. Wakes to Jin complaining, "Gro~ss. For fucks sake..", allows Jin to unceremoniously roll him to the cold edge of the bed before spreading back out into the warm spot he leaves behind.

Jin forgets to turn the bathroom light off on his way back, but neither of them are awake long enough to care.

\---

They were taught early on about feigning the blow of a punch, how to angle a strike in relation to the angle of the camera. Fighting Hayato - holding Jin and shaking him, _shaking him_ \- inflames something in Kame, something beyond the depth of Ryu. Jin is an unpredictable fighter, play anger, fists in collars. Everything about Jin is unpredictable spare for the one thing Kame suffers the most, wishes could be changeable until a better time, until there's space to think, until they're older and Jin's realised he was just doing what young headstrong people do and letting go was for the best.

Hayato cracks and Jin shines through when his hands are on Kame. With the camera behind him the tip of his tongue pokes out, the tip of his spindly ring finger finds skin beneath Kame's collar. Jin loves Kame endlessly and Kame's so afraid. They're play fighting, angled punches, scripted anger. Jin's so free and Kame can't let go, loves Jin with every available beat of his heart, the half of a whole that has to be shaken and twisted before it can fit.

Jin has loved Kame since the moment he saw him and nurses his bruised and aching jaw with a lazy, sated preen of a whine.

\---

Kame remembers, in an offkey replica of Jin's voice, that _when you're passionate about something you just do it_. Jin's kissing him but his eyes remain stubbornly open, his lips stubbornly shut. Kame stares up at the ceiling and feels weighed deeper down by his hard-edged mind, fixed on work and poking around in his body to try and find some of those good feelings it knows should be there, than by Jin's eager scrabbling to get closer. Scrabbling is what he'd call it;  
Jin's like a zealous puppy trying to jump up on furniture.

They're at home - finally at home for a few days, Jin's place because it was closer. Kame brought his script with him but they ate, watched a movie with Jin's head heavy on Kame's shoulder, moved to bed as night drew in. Kame's sporadically not missed work and sporadically wondered if it's the inevitability of them being unable to part or the fact they kiss when no one is looking that means they're no longer friends but something else.

"You're thinking."

Jin sounds deflated. Kame quickly refocuses and finds Jin far more flushed than himself, lips scarlet and pushed into a pout. Not scrabbling now, comfortably entirely uncomfortable wedged against Kame's hip.

"You caught me," Kame reaches to brush the dip below Jin's cheekbone with his knuckles. He doesn't tell Jin what he was thinking because he knows Jin will assume one of three things and will then assume the other two as well. "Sorry. I'm.." _Tired. Can't wind down from work. It's not you? That's important. Tired is over used. Work.._

"I know.." Jin ventures slowly as the words flicker behind Kame's eyes but can't seem find their way out, slow enough that Kame could interrupt if he wanted. He doesn't, just walks his fingers to Jin's hairline and sinks them in. "Sometimes you don't get all caught up in.. I mean. It's kind of.."

"Kind of..?"

Kame can't stop raking his fingers through Jin's hair. Mine, yours. Kame doesn't like these talks. Doesn't want to lose this over a 'just because'. Just because sometimes his hormones rage as fiercly as anyone else he knows and sometimes the morning after he feels insidiously uncomfortable. Sometimes he smiles for days after, and sometimes he wishes he'd never met Jin at all.

"It's weird for me. Because I think generally people that.. People in relationships who.. feel.. things.. They sort of have the same effect on each other?" Jin continues without a word about Kame's vigorous hair-petting, "So though you do sometimes, when you don't and I'm all.. And you're not, then I'm like.."

"It's not you," Kame interjects. Raises an eyebrow, because their words didn't clash, they matched. His knuckles are white in Jin's hair.

"It's.. not you," Jin says again, squinting at Kame and he can't tell what kind of squint it is. "I'm.. what's a not-weird word. Happy? No.. Anyway. I'm whatever it is when you are, but when you're not I don't realise until too late and then I feel dumb and.. then I think 'ahhh what if that was the last time it was ok to make that mistake'? I.. Y'know.."

Kame's eyes are fixed on the ceiling again. His hand slips from Jin's hair when Jin moves, and Jin starts to move a lot - drops his head to Kame's bare chest, squirms down in the bed, stomps his toes along the mattress, curves his lower body away from Kame, hips firmly down.

"I.." Kame starts when he thinks he's ready, but his voice comes out like strings under an inexperienced bow. He continues anyway, Jin's sharp cheekbone pressing into his sternum, "I think that a lot, too. You're not making mistakes, I.. am selfish and this isn't.."

"Shut up," Jin murmurs after a pause, doesn't do soft and delicate, but he would rather stay close than make a scene. There's no scene to be made. "I don't like boys and you don't like anyone, but we're still here. You're not selfish. 'n I love you."

_That doesn't make everything better_ , Kame doesn't say, but Jin is pressed tight to his chest and feels every little thing.

\---

Jin complains endlessly as December draws in. The outside locations are too cold, the inside locations are too cold, it's too cold to lie beaten on the floor. He's told anyone who can't escape in time that he has the flu, anyone that voluntarily listens about how stiff and sore his joints are and how his throat hurts and and and until he's wheedled an extra blanket or hot drink.

 

"Cold!" Jin barks into Kame's left ear as they approach the minibus that'll be taking them home tonight. Kame walks fast for someone who's had so little sleep and so much time out in the elements; Jin drops behind, circles round. "I'm sooo coooold~~" he whines low and flat in the right ear as Kame tuts and dodges to the side.

Kame has so far enjoyed shooting during colder months - the chill keeps his mind sharp, adds an aggravated energy to the scenes of whoever gets the thinnest outfits and chilliest sets. There are unpleasant moments, Jin's persistent whining being one (or a couple hundred) of them, but overall the experience continues to be a good one.

"I'm going to my own place tonight."

Jin pouts at Kame's back, hearing the scowl even if he can't see it.

"I'll keep my hands to myself."

"I need things from home."

"I have everything you need," Jin takes deeper strides and overtakes, rounding on Kame, whining and flapping his arms as Kame sidesteps and continues ahead, "We can stop off there in the morning, Kazuuuu~~"

Their argument precedes them onto the bus. Kame only realises after dropping into a seat, arms tight across his chest and legs splayed out to keep Jin at a distance, that neither of them specified where they wanted to go. He leans forward and opens his mouth to call, "excuse me," to the driver, but suddenly everything is dark. And warm, and reeks of whatever it is that Jin's room smells of.

The bus is vibrating beneath them and turning left - towards Jin's place - by the time Kame's found his way out of the blanket. Jin's managed to break down the little defence his legs offered and is wedged against his side with a smile that's all pleasure and no indulgence.

"I've been keeping them," he reveals with sleepy pride and another blanket tumbling from that suspiciously large bag he's lugged to and fro each day. "So everyone could be warm on the bus, but it's just us today."

"Oh," Kame blinks, frowns, and hasn't finished processing that Jin's whining was for the greater good by the time he realises he's being bundled up. "Uh. Thank you."

Jin hums, pleased both with himself and the warmth. "Wake me up when we get there," he says before dropping a peck to Kame's cheek and his head to Kame's shoulder.

Kame doesn't bother protesting. Another day of waking stuck together with sweat, smelling of Jin's deodorant and whatever the hell this blanket smells of, play fights in the shower and verbal fights over dinner. It doesn't sound too bad.

_Ugly scrunchy face_ Kame thinks in his own voice as he looks down at Jin. _Like a little cute hamster_ his mind helpfully adds in his niece's.

\---

Jin is the calm to Kame's storm while a raging hurricane in his own right. He loves Kame fiercly, always has. Protects him as much as he leaves him drained and bitter in his wake.

It's their third night in Jin's bed. Kame's body has changed tact but the rest of him hasn't followed, doesn't know where to go. He's under Jin because he wanted to be there, yet beneath the hot press of skin there's crawling.

"Don't worry, 'm here," Jin says, maybe unnecessarily for someone who's inches taller and pounds heavier and is effectively acting as Kame's protective shell. But still helpfully, because if anyone wasn't going to appreciate a sudden halt to something they had their mind set on it's Jin. "Do you want me to go?"

Kame audibly gulps as he considers this, says a quite, "no," and grips tighter to Jin's sides.

"Ok. --sorry," Jin winces, snaps a quiet, "stop that," to his lower body that almost gets a smile out of Kame. Neither of them had expected to stop; Kame couldn't blame either of their bodies for being confused about the holdup, blood still racing and pounding. "So.. Do you want to try and keep going?"

_I want to cry so get out, you're not seeing my ugly face_. Kame's mouth draws down at the edges. He does but he doesn't. He's so hot under Jin that he feels like white light, but the cold shivers keep it from flooding him. The pit of his stomach feels like it's fermenting.

"Ok." Jin never takes Kame's silence as consent, even with him so close, twitching up against Jin. Jin doesn't let Kame stay silent; breathes, gasps, kisses and groans question after question, a stream that never ebbs, _is this ok, are you ok, do you want, can I, can you, should I, are you ok_. Kame never intends to be unfair and Jin would get frustrated, maybe (definitely), if it weren't someone that had already seen every ugly side of him and still wanted to do this. All of this. Kame's not the only unfair one, Jin's considered before, because who's to say either of them are in the right or wrong?

"It's not."

Jin carefully props himself higher on his elbows so he can look down at Kame. "Don't start that again. If I say it's ok, isn't it ok?"

The pleasant tingle of a quickened pulse drains from Kame. From his fingers, toes, the ache between his legs, until it's all in his chest. Something like anger but softer, tighter in his throat, cold in all the places that had been so fevered. His chest throbs with heat and surges, emotion but he doesn't know which one. He wants to hit Jin; he wants Jin to hit back harder. "This gets worse every time we're together. It's too complicated."

"It isn't," Jin whines, "It doesn't."

"It seems to," Kame's palms are flat to Jin's chest now, barely supporting his weight; Jin isn't pushing down, but he feels so small underneath him. "I don't understand. You don't understand, and we haven't even.. If it's this difficult just getting our hands in the right place at the right time, what do you think is going to happen when we try to go.. It's too complicated for either of us to try and figure out when there's so many other important things happening."

"I don't understand a lot of things," Jin counters, brashly obtuse. Softens as the crease between Kame's sparse eyebrows deepens. Their careers are as much at stake as their relationship, and Jin should find that far scarier than he does. The eyebrows almost hook a laugh up out of him, the sudden realisation that with no make up they're just a thin slant of stubble. Amusement must be shining clear in his eyes because Kame looks ready to bruise his jaw again. "I don't, you can't deny that. And I don't care. I let my heart lead, not my head."

Kame snorts. "That's because you're an idiot." But he's at least grateful that Jin's led by his heart and not his dick, even if it often leads his good intentions slightly astray.

"You're the opposite way around but we're both still right here."

 

Five minutes later finds them curled close, side by side, staring up into the haze of night together.

"We can keep doing this and figuring it out," Jin says to the ceiling, hands cold and linked over his chest. "It doesn't matter. We have some really good times. 'n I wouldn't want your bad times to be with anyone else. We love eachother, so-"

"Oh, please." Kame feels Jin stir at his side before his eyes have even rolled a full circuit.

"Why are you so cynical?" Jin's voice isn't it's usual whine but a flat disappointment. Kame doesn't like it. Jin sits up beside Kame and stares down at him, and Kame doesn't like that either.

"What reason do I have not to be?" Kame almost wishes Jin had seen and understood less so his rekindled anger felt more of a revelation. "When everything and everyone and the entire fucking world wherever I turn tells me that I'm wrong? Or need help? You might have blind faith in people but I can't. What makes you the one person that's not going to leave because the fucking-- 'the most vital part in any relationship' only works out for us maybe one in every five tries?"

Jin's dull expression doesn't falter. "I don't want to leave you," he says as though Kame is stupid, and as though he isn't trembling and the scarlet set to his face isn't lighting up his ears and creeping over his throat and chest. "Up until a few months ago I thought I only wanted girls. I'm ok with whatever happens."

"So we're both pushing ourselves for something neither of us want?"

Jin shoves Kame before he's had time to consider rewording that question. It wasn't what he'd meant - the shallowest insight he could have given into why he's angry, why he's frustrated, why he doesn't need this when it's so hard to face imperfection in both work and play. Jin's hands are tight on his shoulders and he's shaken, and he understands.

"Just stop this," Jin's voice is hoarse, both a shout and a whisper blocked by the lump in his throat. "I loved-- if not _loved_ I felt gross pukey things when I was with you ever since we met each other. Since the day we met each other. So are you going to believe everyone else in the world that this isn't ok or believe me that it is?"

Kame laughs. It surprises them both, but it feels so good Kame can barely stop for long enough to apologise through it. Jin watches on, bemused, and loosens his hold on Kame's trembling shoulders.

"Did I.. Uh." Jin's suddenly lost, but pleasantly so. Kame looks far less crumpled by the time he's finished. His smile as he looks up in sheepish apology makes Jin feel the gross pukey things tenfold.

"You're the most arrogant asshole I've ever met," Kame sighs; Jin nods without argument. "And possibly the most stubborn. ..easily the most stubborn."

Jin nods again, sharply because this is old news, and reaches for Kame's cold hand. His pulse feels like it's surging through his fingertips and Kame's respond in kind. "Then believe me. I don't think you're wrong."

"Really." Kame tries not to sound flat. And evidently fails, as the grip on his hand turns painful.

"Ye-e-s. It upsets you so much I really don't believe you're feeling it because you're trying to. So that's normal, right? People just feel how they feel. You can't help if what you react to is guys or.. like, or people with ropes and stuff, or even if it turns out you can.. you like both guys and girls. Uhmm," Jin's face floods with heat as realises that's him. A him that he'd never considered or felt the need to confirm. Kame stares solemnly down at their hands to insure he doesn't smile. "S-so! It's just what happens all by itself. I'm happy when you're happy, 'n 'm sad when you get upset. But.. that's it."

Kame's brows draw tight as he considers that. He lets Jin gently nudge him back down against the pillows, settles against his side again. "'That's it'.."

"Yup. You shouldn't listen to everyone else without even asking me," Jin pouts so severely Kame can sense it without even raising his head to look. "You feel one thing and I feel a different thing, and seeing as your thing sometimes gets really bothered by mine, 'm mostly just glad that I haven't chased you away yet. ..Mou, I think I already said something like this the last time we had to talk. You're stubborn too."

Kame hums agreement against Jin's shoulder, both the storm in his mind and the pit of his stomach starting to quell. "You're gross when you get all sincere like that."

"Tell me about it." Jin knows he can be abrasively sincere if need be, but tonight wasn't about his lack of tact when it comes to expressing it. Just stopping Kame from trying to leave before Jin can run, because Jin has no plans to run. He hates running anyway. "Ok now?"

"Mm. For now," Kame presses his brow to Jin's arm and stares down into the shadow. Takes a breath that's hot against Jin's skin and doesn't speak much louder than he's breathing. "I need control and I can't have it. I can't deal with that.

Sometimes," he adds after swallowing. Anger blanketed by tiredness, sadness, weakness, Kame just feels vulnerable. He often can't deal with that either. "I like being with you, Jin. It's just.."

"Hard being told you're wrong all the time when you're a perfectionist?"

"Ugh." Kame butts his forehead against Jin's shoulder. "Put simply, I guess so. There's more t.."

"I know."

Jin swoops in for a kiss and Kame winces, feels himself strain back into the pillow. He expects heat, impatience, _and now everything is ok_ to be running through Jin's mind.

It's barely a peck. For reassurance, Kame realises as Jin pulls back and laughs at the way his cheeks are puffed out. Kame returns it in apology as much as affection, bumping Jin's warm cheek with his nose. Jin beams and ignores Kame's grumbling as he crushes him to his side.

"We're going to be grouchy tomorrow if we stay up any longer. Let's talk more another night." Jin says to the top of Kame's head, which makes a grunting sound presumably in agreement.

 

"You must like me getting mad at you," Kame yawns, back already sweat-sticky against Jin's chest. Jin huffs into the fine hair at the nape of his neck but doesn't move, neither to jostle him in complaint or press closer in indignant protest.

"It's adrenaline ok."

"Ok," Kame snickers, doesn't wiggle back against Jin. He feels lighter inside but not playfully cruel. Just comfortable and warm, happiness simmering softly beneath the surface. Warm as always when he's with Jin. "See you tomorrow."

"Eh," Jin's knee shoves into Kame's thigh. Kame elbows Jin and Jin responds with a displeased rumble beside his ear. "Tmrrow."

"'tmrrow'" Kame's eyes slip shut as he mouths Jin's response with a smile. Jin moves just enough behind him that they unpeel, skin pulling tight and sensitive then tingling cold. He leans over and presses a loud, wet kiss to Kame's cheek, huffs again as he tucks Kame's head beneath his chin. A sweet, strong pulse thrums through Kame's sternum, against Jin's, through Jin's back. Kame drifts off to sleep unable to place which beats are his own.


End file.
